


What it Takes to Come Alive

by Laura Kaye (laurakaye)



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Apologies, Blow Jobs, Captain America: The Winter Soldier Spoilers, Cuddling & Snuggling, Cunnilingus, Donuts, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s01e20 Nothing Personal, Everything is sadness without Clint and Natasha, F/M, Feels, Fix-It, Forgiveness, Hand Feeding, M/M, Multi, Pheels, Reunion Sex, Safer Sex, Swimming Pools, Threesome - F/M/M, Vaginal Sex, that giant freakout Phil said he was going to have later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-06
Updated: 2014-05-06
Packaged: 2018-01-23 17:54:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1574399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurakaye/pseuds/Laura%20Kaye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This story is a post-ep for "Nothing Personal," and therefore contains spoilers for all currently aired episodes of AoS as well as Captain America: The Winter Soldier.</p>
<p>Many thanks to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/bethbethbeth/pseuds/Beth%20H">Beth H</a> and <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/Tawryn/pseuds/Tawryn">Tawryn</a> for beta, and to the squeemail crew for encouragement!</p>
    </blockquote>





	What it Takes to Come Alive

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a post-ep for "Nothing Personal," and therefore contains spoilers for all currently aired episodes of AoS as well as Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
> 
> Many thanks to [Beth H](http://archiveofourown.org/users/bethbethbeth/pseuds/Beth%20H) and [Tawryn](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Tawryn/pseuds/Tawryn) for beta, and to the squeemail crew for encouragement!

 

> _“I’ll need a base of operation, weapons, tactical backup—who do you have working for you?”_
> 
> _“Wait, wait, hold on, Coulson. There is no more backup, no more hidden bunkers.”_
> 
> _“Oh, come on. I know Fury has others.”_
> 
> _“There’s no Fury! We’re not bringing the band back together again, Coulson. It’s over.”_
> 
>  

It took a while, but Phil finally convinced Melinda it was OK to go back to her own room (he’d booked her a room, hoping she’d come back as soon as she heard) and get some sleep. She’d gone clear across two countries three times in as many days; she needed a chance to rest much more than Phil needed company. It wasn’t fair of him to lean too heavily on her, anyhow, not when the rift between them was so recently and tentatively closed. 

They’d be at the motel for a little while, regardless. Phil needed time to figure out what to do. He had his team—amazingly, miraculously, he still had his team—but they were running low on cash and transport and weapons and ammo and spare parts and tech and just about everything else that they’d need to go after Ward and Garrett. Maria had paid for the rooms for a week (to be honest, he suspected Stark had paid for the rooms, whether or not he knew it), but aside from that, they were on their own. The SHIELD caches and safe houses Phil knew about were compromised, and the few things he’d personally stashed (off the record) had all been supplied with a mind to laying low for a while or escaping a compromised op, not taking a team of six on a commando-style raid on a HYDRA facility in a so-far-undiscovered location. Not to mention that with their identities scrubbed, they couldn’t fall back on personal resources even if they had been safe otherwise. 

He should have been coming up with a plan, living up to the man his team thinks he is, but he hadn’t slept since the plane from Portland to Providence, and he ached all over from the fight with Ward and Deathlok and the harrowing escape from the Bus. He was trying not to think about TAHITI or the implications of the report Melinda had found; a man could only really cope with so many worries at once. It was ungrateful, he knew, but he missed—

No. He’d made his choices, for reasons that seemed good at the time, and now wasn’t the time to wallow in regrets. He shucked his jacket and tie, turned on the TV and flipped until he found a marathon of _Dance Moms,_ then kicked off his shoes and leaned back against a pile of all the pillows from both beds. With any luck, he wouldn’t dream of anything worse than a ten-year-old blowing a dance solo, and maybe tomorrow he’d be able to figure out what they could do next.

The sound of the door closing woke him, and he went from asleep to tense in an instant, groping in the dark for his gun on the nightstand while trying not to draw attention, eyes searching for movement in the room.

“Easy, Coulson, easy!” the voice was familiar— achingly, impossibly familiar— and Phil froze. The lamp in the corner flicked on, and he blinked hard, trying to force his eyes to adjust to the sudden light so he could see what was happening, because there was no way that Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff were actually standing in his motel room in LA in the middle of the night.

But, oh. If they _were_.

Distantly, Phil thought that he should be moving to defend himself, because they could be anything, impostors or hallucinations or HYDRA (no, they couldn’t, they would never— but he’d thought that about Jasper, about Garrett, about _Ward_ —), but he couldn’t seem to make himself do anything but stare.

“We broke him, Nat,” Clint said. “I told you we should have called.” The words were flippant, but the tone was soft and serious, gentle, almost sad, and Phil hadn’t even realized he was holding his breath until he stopped, taking huge, gasping inhales, one after another. He was dimly aware that he was losing it, about to hyperventilate or maybe burst into tears, and there was nothing to be done about it. His composure was shot, his reserves exhausted by blow after blow, Melinda and HYDRA and Audrey and Ward and Maria and TAHITI.

“I—” he started, and couldn’t go on, words catching in his tight throat. “I—” 

_I’m sorry,_ he wanted to say. _I missed you. I love you. I’m so glad you’re all right._  

“Aw, Phil,” Clint said, and suddenly he was being crowded on both sides, Clint broad and firm on his left and Natasha supple and strong on his right, arms worming behind him, bracing him, propping him up and holding him close, and no force on earth could have kept his burning eyes from overflowing.

“We’ve got you,” Clint whispered, and kissed Phil’s cheek, his temple, the corner of his mouth. “We’re here.”

“We heard that you could use some backup,” Natasha said, and kissed him in turn, a fleeting brush of soft lips just in front of his ear. “Sorry it took so long; we had a few stops to make along the way.” 

It felt amazing to be between them, comforting and familiar in a way that he’d never thought he’d feel again. Even before he’d died they’d been separated so much by work, he’d thought it only a matter of time until the sides of the triangle collapsed, leaving him outside. He’d convinced himself that their relationship was an aberration, co-dependency brought about by the artificial closeness of strike team work, and that when Delta came to an end it was only natural that the three of them would separate. Clint and Natasha would be together, radiant and vital and amazing, and Phil would find someone else, a normal person who could share a normal life.

He’d convinced himself of a lot of utter bullshit before he died, and he’d let it guide him into making decisions he was growing more and more to regret.

“We missed you so much,” Clint said into his shoulder, and a loud sob caught in Phil’s throat;  he pressed his fist against his mouth, trying to hold back the noise, his lip catching painfully between knuckles and teeth. He’d been foolish when Fury had insisted that nobody could know, convincing himself that it wouldn’t matter, that they had moved on, that it would be better that way. How could he have been lying to himself for so long without realizing it? How could they bear to touch him now, small and ugly with all his lies exposed?

A small hand wrapped around his, pulling it gently but implacably away from his mouth. “Don’t,” Natasha said. “Let us hear. Let us share it.”

He didn’t deserve this. He hadn’t before, when he’d pushed them away and hidden from them and from himself; he certainly didn’t now, after months of lies, after whatever horrors he’d done for their sakes at TAHITI (and he knows himself enough to know that when Fury had said _a mortally wounded Avenger_ he would have heard _Clint and Natasha_ ).

He must have managed to say some of that aloud, because Clint wrapped a warm, calloused hand around the back of his neck, shaking him just a little, encouraging him to look up, to meet Clint’s piercing, steady eyes.

“Nothing about us has ever been about what anyone deserves,” Clint said. “We’ve all got red somewhere in our ledgers. You never cared about that when it was us, Phil, why would we do any less for you?”

“Everything SHIELD knew about me has been made public,” Natasha said, something thin and brittle in her voice that he’d never heard before. “My identities have been burned. My redemption was a lie—”

“No!”  It was overloud, harsh and raw, but he couldn’t let that stand. “Never, Tasha. You’re a good person, it wasn’t your fault—”

“I should have known,” she said firmly. “I should have, but I didn’t. I trusted in a lie.”

“You were betrayed.”

“And so were you,” she said. 

“You were following orders,” Clint said. “Just like you always have.”

“I was _hiding_ behind my orders,” Phil spat. “I was being a coward.”

Natasha pulled back a little, moving to face him more fully. Her face was sharper than he remembered, but her eyes were luminous in the dim light. “Then stop hiding.”

Everyone stilled, and Phil could see two futures stretching out from this moment. He could do what he’d always done, lock down and pull back, continuing as he had been, losing himself piece by piece. He’d have done that, before; he’d have decided it was the right thing to do, to spare them the fear and uncertainty of TAHITI, the danger of their mission, to send them off together while Phil stayed behind.

The other path was less certain, because he’d never taken it before. He could turn away from the stark comfort of a familiar pain, and go with them into a future where the only thing he could be sure of is that he would not face it alone.

Heart hammering, breath catching in his throat, Phil crumpled forward into Natasha’s shoulder, and let go.

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed when he finally came back to himself. They had tangled together on the bed, Phil in the center, propped up on pillows and Clint’s broad shoulders. His eyes were swollen and sore, his throat and sinuses clogged, but he felt oddly light, as though the only thing keeping him from floating away was Natasha’s head resting over his heart.

He drew in a deep, shaky breath, and felt Clint’s arm tighten around him and Natasha both. 

“You aren’t allowed to go off without us anymore,” Clint said, his voice rough as though he’d been the one having a breakdown. “They don’t take care of you.”

“To be fair,” Phil croaked, “I don’t exactly make it easy.”

Natasha snorted. “That’s no excuse,” she said. “Amateurs.” Her fingers worked, undoing his buttons, and she slipped a hand under his shirt, cupping her palm unerringly over the scar on his chest. Phil threaded his fingers through the silky fall of her hair, resting his hand on the warm curve of her skull. He could feel a scar under his ring finger; Santiago de Cali, 2009.

“How much do you know?” he asked.

“Enough,” Natasha said.

Clint laughed, a rusty little chuckle that Phil could feel as much as hear. “Nat took a break in the middle of bossing Cap around to have a little chat with Fury.”

“You were with Cap? At the Triskelion?” 

“He couldn’t have done it without her,” Clint said. “She saved him from HYDRA.”

“Of course she did,” Phil said, pride rising like a warm bubble in his chest. “Cap could learn a lot from her.”

She raised her head, the better to arch an amused eyebrow at the two of them. “Well, I did give him his first kiss since 1945.”

“Wow, really?” Clint said. “I’m not sure whether to be turned on or intimidated.”

“Trust me, you two have nothing to worry about,” she said, dry as old bones, the twist of her lips familiar and amazing. She sat up, her hand sliding out from under Phil’s shirt, and he fought down the impulse to catch her wrist, to pull her back. “Do something for me,” she said.

“Okay,” Phil said, and she smiled at him, sweet and sad, and brushed her fingers over his scar again.

“I want to see it,” she said, and Phil flinched.

“I— it looks bad,” he said. Behind him, Clint laid his face on Phil’s shoulder, the tips of his hair tickling Phil’s ear.

“We saw the footage from the helicarrier,” Clint said, his voice muffled. “When… when Loki…”

“Clint, no,” Phil said, helpless. “Why—”

“You’d have done the same,” Natasha said, and that was true, it was useless to deny. 

“So we don’t give a shit how bad it looks now,” Clint said. “It can’t possibly look as bad as that.”

Phil nodded stiffly, swallowing hard, and sat up. His fingers shook as he raised them to the top button of his shirt, and by the time he’d unfastened the first two, Natasha had finished the others. Clint moved to sit next to Natasha in front of Phil, then took Phil’s hands gently, one after the other, and unfastened his cufflinks, setting them on the nightstand next to Phil’s gun. The shirt was creased and grubby and smelled of jet fuel and smoke, but Clint eased it off his shoulders like a high-class valet and laid it neatly to the side. Phil’s undershirt had come untucked long before, and Clint and Natasha sat back as he reached for the hem to pull it over his head, giving him room.

He was not quite finished being a coward, he realized; he couldn’t bring himself to watch them looking. He stared at his hands, clutching the crumpled t-shirt in his lap, and shivered as the motel air conditioning raised goosebumps on his bare shoulders. They all had scars—there probably wasn’t a single field agent or specialist above a level six who didn’t—but this was a far cry from the thin line of a knife wound or the neat round of a clean shot.

“Bad, huh,” he said, forcing a thin smile.

“Don’t be an idiot, Phil,” Clint said, and Phil looked up, forgetting his self-consciousness at the thickness in Clint’s voice. They were holding hands, clinging together, white-knuckled, looking at him like—even in his mind, he shied away from the words. 

“You _lived_ ,” Natasha said. “It’s beautiful.”

Clint gave a wet sniff and scrubbed his free hand over his face. “Better than the last time, that’s for sure,” he said gruffly. “Does it hurt?” Clint’s hand twitched towards him, and he kept glancing back and forth between Phil’s face and his chest, anxious.

“Not anymore. It’s… weird, though. There’s some nerve damage, places without much sensation, but then right next to that it’ll be really sensitive. You… you can touch it, if you want.”

Clint reached for him, his calloused fingers trailing delicately over the knotted flesh. It was a strange feeling, distant and over-sensitized by turns, and Phil shivered.

Natasha leaned over, her lips inches from his ear. “Kiss him,” she said, and Phil’s breath caught. “He needs it.”

He looked at Clint for confirmation, hope warring with disbelief. Clint met his eyes steadily, emotion clear on his weathered face. “Please,” Clint whispered, more the shape of it than the sound.

Phil reached for him, pulling him close, one hand on his shoulder and one on his cheek, stubble rasping beneath his thumb and Clint’s pulse fluttering hard beneath his fingers. The first whisper-light brush of their lips was like a dam breaking, and they crashed into each other, desperate and messy. Phil’s mouth was stale with sleep and Clint’s was caffeine-bitter, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but this, the press and release of them, urgent and vital.

A sharp pain on his ear made Phil jump, breaking away from the kiss with a gasp. Natasha let his earlobe slide from between her teeth, her green eyes gleaming. 

“My turn,” she said, and where kissing Clint had been tumultuous, kissing Natasha was mesmerizing, syrup-slow and lush and candy-sweet, punctuated by the rasp of Clint’s stubble as Clint turned his attention to Phil’s collarbones, the hollow of his throat. She pulled away after endless, languorous moments, resting her forehead against his, eyes closed, her quickened breath cool on his wet mouth.

“Nothing was the same while you were gone,” she said. “Never do that again.”

“God, Tasha,” he said. “You know I can’t promise—”

“ _Never do that again,_ ” she interrupted, her voice low and fierce, almost threatening. “Not to us. No more lies.”

He was braced to argue for a moment, a lifetime at SHIELD pushing excuses and contingencies to his lips, then he stopped himself.

There were two paths.

“No more lies,” he said, and it was like falling, terrifying and free. “I promise.”

Clint made a soft sound into his neck. “I really want to blow you right now,” he said. “Just putting that out there.”

Natasha laughed, clear and low, and sat back, eyes dancing. “Crass as ever, Barton,” she said, affection running warm through her voice. “Well, Agent Coulson? Shall you put yourself in our hands?”

“Always,” he said, and burst into startled laughter when Clint tackled him into the pile of pillows, hands already busy on his belt buckle. He watched in wonder as Natasha moved to help, the two of them divesting him of pants and socks and underwear with efficiency and grace. His cock was only just beginning to fill, but they didn’t seem to mind; Natasha urged his legs apart while Clint nuzzled at him, the rasp of his stubble shivery good on Phil’s inner thighs.

“Stop fucking around, Barton,” Natasha said. “Get naked and come get him ready for me.” Clint lifted his head, grinning wickedly, and scrambled off the foot of the bed, skinning out of his clothes in seconds, eager and unselfconscious. He crawled back up the bed, sleek and predatory, and met Phil’s eyes boldly before taking Phil’s entire cock into his mouth. He suckled and swallowed luxuriantly, beautiful eyes fixed on Phil, each pull of lips and tongue coaxing another pulse of blood into Phil’s stiffening cock. He eased back gradually as it lengthened, bumping the back of his throat. Phil lost himself in it, the wet sweetness of Clint’s mouth and the heat of his eyes, pleasure and love that he’d thought he’d never have again, and he jolted a bit in surprise when Natasha came back into his line of sight, gloriously naked, hair spilling across his chest as she stooped to kiss his scar. She leaned across him to kiss him again, harder this time, and his hands skated over her, the dip of her waist, the lush curve of hip and thigh, silky and hot and inexpressibly dear. When they paused for breath, he found himself panting, skin flushed all over and prickling with sweat. It was the most alive he’d felt in months.

“Take it easy back there, Barton,” she said. “Let’s not end this party prematurely.”

Clint slid off of Phil’s cock with an obscene slurp. “I know what I’m doing, Tash,” he said, lips still so close they brushed over Phil’s cockhead with every word.

Phil groaned. “Fair warning,” he managed to say, thighs twitching in an effort not to fuck up into Clint’s mouth. “I’ve probably only got one round in me tonight.” 

Natasha arched an eyebrow, smirking. “In that case, I suppose we’ll just both have to fuck you at the same time,” she said. 

“God, _please_ ,” Phil groaned, and she tossed something over her shoulder to Clint, who caught it one-handed without looking up. Natasha tangled the fingers of one hand in Phil’s short hair, pulling his head back, exposing his throat. She ran a speculative thumb over his lower lip.

“Would you care to put that mouth to use?” she asked.

“Tasha,” he groaned, trying to pull her closer, though his limbs weren’t quite working right, drugged with pleasure. “Come here.”

“Mmm,” she said, and did something to his pillows, propping him at just the right place so that when she straddled him, he could reach her without straining. He breathed deep, the intoxicating scent of her, sweet soap and clean sweat and woman. Her pussy lips were plump, flushed and dewy and gorgeous beneath copper curls, and Phil’s mouth watered.

He ran a thumb back and forth along the seam of her, pressing in gently, parting her in increments and spreading hot slick. She made a sharp little noise the first time he brushed her clit, her thighs flexing.

“Stop teasing,” she said. She was cupping her own tits, thumbing over her rosy nipples, and he felt his cock pulse at the sight. “We can make it last next time.”

“Whatever you say,” he said, and pulled her lips apart with his thumbs, moving to caress her in earnest. He alternated broad licks with soft little suckles to her clit, the way she liked, nudging at her with his nose, lipping at her soft lovely skin. When she started arching to meet his tongue, he added a finger, dipping into the pool of wetness at her center then rubbing firmly just outside her opening, drawing low, tremulous noises out of her. She was sensitive, there, and if he could just… _there_.

She came with a breathy little cry, twitching and clenching as Phil kept rubbing at her sweet spot, drawing her orgasm out, luxurious and prolonged. She could come for a long time like this, and would twitch with aftershocks for minutes after without being overly-sensitized. His wrist was sore by the time she gasped, “Okay, okay, enough,” but that was a tiny inconvenience compared with the privilege of making love to her.

He was dimly conscious of Clint saying something to Natasha, and she pulled back a little. His face was wet with her, cold in the exposed air. “Tasha?”

She smiled down at him, face rosy, her hairline damp with sweat. “Just a little break,” she said encouragingly, and moved to the side, stretching like a cat before tucking herself up next to Phil. 

“Ready for step two?” Clint asked, grinning at them, his cheek pillowed on Phil’s thigh.

“I think it’s more like step twelve,” Natasha said. “God, my pussy’s still twitching.” Phil felt his mouth curl in a smug smile, and she laughed, slapping his shoulder playfully. “Just wait, Coulson, your turn is coming,” she said, and propped herself up on one elbow to watch as Clint brushed a cool, slick finger against Phil’s hole. Phil hadn’t done this since the last time with Clint, but the stretch never tipped over into pain, Clint’s fingers languid and gentle and gradual. Clint alternated motions meant to open Phil up with brushes to his prostate and attention to his cock, keeping him aroused but not close to coming.

When Phil was loose and ready, cock flushed and hard and damp from Clint’s mouth, Natasha brushed a kiss over his lips and rose, pulling two condoms from under one of the pillows and handing one to Clint, opening the other and smoothing it down over him. He groaned at the sight, her clever fingers around his cock, Clint behind her putting his own condom on with brisk movements, and she smiled at him indulgently.

“On our sides, okay?” she said, and he nodded, body zinging with anticipation as they moved him with effortless strength, Phil and Natasha facing each other, Clint behind them, their heads pillowed on one of Clint’s magnificent arms. 

“You first,” she directed, and Clint hummed in agreement, slotting his hips against Phil’s ass and entering him in a long glide, big hand steadying Phil’s hip, pulling him close as Phil groaned at the pleasure of it, eyes fluttering closed. Clint was hot and solid against his back, holding him, filling him. Phil flexed around him and reveled in the slight burn.

Natasha laid a hand on his cheek, and he blinked, taking a moment to focus on her. “Ready?” she asked.

“God, yes,” Phil said, and she gave a delicious little shimmy all down his front as she moved into position, curling one strong leg over his hip and positioning the tip of his cock at her entrance. She met Clint’s eyes over Phil’s shoulder and nodded, and Clint held them steady as she pulled Phil inside her, her pussy still slick and swollen, enveloping him in silky heat.

They fucked him together, perfectly in concert in this as in everything else, Clint filling him with driving strokes that pushed him into Natasha, fitting together like parts in some exquisite machine. He quickly lost his sense of time; there was nothing but them, filling and surrounding him, slick bodies and hot breath. Clint and Natasha, returned to him, taking him, loving him, forgiving him. He came at last, after two minutes or twenty, fumbling for Natasha’s clit to tip her over after him, clenching down around Clint, who swore and drove into him for another few strokes before spilling over himself, pulsing into the condom.

In the wake of orgasm, Phil felt the fatigue of the last several days looming over him like a great wave. He managed to deal with his condom without making a mess, then followed along pliantly as Clint and Natasha moved him around, pulling the wrecked bedspread off the bed and arranging him to their liking, wiping a warm cloth over his skin before tucking themselves into bed with him, their backs to him, protecting him on both sides. The last thing he felt as he tumbled into deep, heavy sleep was the brush of a kiss. 

Phil slept, and did not dream.

He blinked slowly awake in the grey light before dawn. He was lying on his side, wrapped in Clint’s arms. Natasha, her hair wavy and damp, wearing yoga pants and a tank top, was unpacking a large case onto the other bed. He made a sleepy, inquiring noise, and she turned to face him. He blinked.

“Is that a grenade launcher?” 

She grinned at him, the smug feline grin that meant that she was very happy with herself. “Yup.”

“How do you have a grenade launcher?”

“It was a present,” she said.

“Best not to question it, Phil,” Clint said, hooking his chin over Phil’s shoulder. “Nat works in mysterious ways.”

“Like we said before,” Natasha said, “we made a few stops on the way out here.” She turned on the lamp and made a ta-dah! gesture at the other bed, and Phil felt his jaw drop, scrambling to sit up to get a better view. The bed was covered with stuff; stacks of cash, boxes of ammo, all manner of weapons, neat bricks of explosive, laptops, comms earpieces, large first-aid kits like SHIELD stocked on the quinjets, insulated cases from SHIELD R&D.

“We’ve got a few ID packets for the three of us, clean identities that were never on record at SHIELD,” Clint said. “We’ve only got a few blanks, though, so we may need to do something else for the rest of your team.”

“This must be every cache you had between here and DC,” Phil said. He was dangerously close to tearing up again; with anyone else there he’d have felt horribly exposed, but in the light of everything he couldn’t bring himself to care if Clint and Natasha saw.

Natasha set the grenade launcher down and sat on Phil’s bed, taking his hand. “It was time for a fresh start,” she said simply, and bent to kiss his forehead.

“Nowhere better to get one,” Clint added. 

“Indeed,” Natasha said. “Now stop lazing about in bed and help me organize all this. Phil, take a shower; you smell like airplane and come.”

He and Clint exchanged fond looks, then rose to do her bidding, and, well, if the shower gave Phil a good reason for his face to be wet, there was a reason Natasha had the highest espionage scores in SHIELD history.

When he emerged, one towel around his hips and scrubbing his hair with another, the equipment on the spare bed had been tidied away into a series of metal cases, stacked against the far wall, and Clint had donned a pair of low-slung, loose sweatpants that showed tantalizing glimpses of the cut of his hips when he moved.

“Your suit needs cleaning,” Natasha said. “You can borrow some of Clint’s clothes.” She gestured to the bed, where clothes were laid out; boxer-briefs, socks, t-shirt and jeans.

“I still say we should forget getting dressed and just stay in and fuck all day,” Clint said. Natasha rolled her eyes at him. “You say that like we wouldn’t have a gaggle of baby agents breaking down the door in a panic the minute Phil didn’t show up for breakfast,” she said.

 “She’s got a point,” Phil said, a little regretful. It did sound nice.

“Fine, then,” Clint said. “Get dressed and let’s go out by the pool for a while, I want to swim.”

Clint’s clothes weren’t an exact fit, but they were close enough, though he did shoot Clint a narrow look at the Hawkeye t-shirt.

“He wears his own face everywhere,” Natasha said. “It’s a sickness.”

“Hey, I’m a bona fide superhero now,” Clint said, preening.

Phil shook his head, but pulled the shirt on, pretending not to notice the way Clint’s eyes lingered on him as he smoothed it over his torso.

The early morning sunlight was buttery and bright, and Phil pulled a chaise out into a warm spot while Clint peeled out of his sweatpants, revealing a pair of short, tight blue trunks.

“Going for the Bond look, Barton?”

“Whatever, I make this look good,” Clint said, diving in with barely a ripple and swimming an entire length underwater.

“He does,” Phil confided in Natasha, who shook her head affectionately and nudged Phil’s legs to either side, sitting in between them and leaning back against Phil’s chest. He turned his head and buried his nose in her sun-warm hair. She smelled like oranges.

They’d been basking quietly for about twenty minutes, watching as Clint’s powerful thighs and shoulders propelled him through the water like a blade, when he finally pulled himself out of the pool.

“That’s hardly a workout,” Natasha teased.

“We’ll work out later,” Clint said, leering comically at them. “I’m hungry.” He picked up his pants and wandered over to the snack machine, dripping on the deck as he made his selections and digging money out of his pockets. He came back over to them, hands full, and tossed Natasha a granola bar and Phil a packet of chocolate-covered donuts. “We can share,” he said, spreading a towel on the ground next to them and sitting on it, leaning back against Phil’s leg.

“You’ll bleach out these jeans with pool water,” Phil warned, opening the donuts.

Clint waved an airy hand. “Gives them character,” he said. “Gimme a donut?”

Phil held the packet out to him.

“Aw, Phil, my hands are all pool-y,” he said, waving his wrinkly fingers in the air. “Here, put it in my mouth.” He opened his mouth wide, angling toward Phil like a baby bird and waggling his eyebrows.

“You are such a child sometimes,” Natasha said, taking a neat bite of her granola bar. Phil shook his head and broke off a bite-sized piece of donut. 

“You’re lucky I missed you,” he told Clint, putting it neatly in his mouth, Clint managing to kiss his fingers on the way.

“I know,” Clint said, voice a shade too serious for a man with his mouth full of donut.

They ate the entire packet that way, Phil feeding every other bite to Clint while Natasha mocked them in Russian. Clint was sucking a smear of waxy chocolate off Phil’s thumb when Fitzsimmons came around the corner, a few minutes early for breakfast. Jemma stopped short, eyes huge, and Fitz wheeled around to see what she was looking at, tripped over a plastic chair, and fell into the pool.

“It’s a good thing we came when we did,” Natasha said dryly, over Clint’s guffaws and Fitz’s splashing, and Phil kissed the top of her head and thought, for the first time since he’d been kidnapped on the bridge, that everything was going to work out fine.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * A [Restricted Work] by [thealidoyle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thealidoyle/pseuds/thealidoyle) Log in to view. 




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